


Spellbound

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [14]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set following the episode Broken</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spellbound

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775), [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809), [Dreams and Wishes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618851), [All the Better To….](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619484), [Magic Keys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619497), [Curiouser and Curiouser](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619514), [Snow Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620280), [Spinning Straw](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620288), [Wooden Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/621128), [Poisoned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/622526) and [True Love and Other Curses](http://archiveofourown.org/works/625038)

This has been the strangest of days and it’s not as though she is unfamiliar with the strange and unusual. She is also well acquainted with both homicidal rage and suicidal despair; she’s just not used to experiencing quite this level of instability when it comes to those emotions. To say that today has had highs and lows would be an understatement of immeasurable proportions. 

As she sat on Henry’s bed, clutching his pillow and inhaling his scent, she had believed that her life was over. The population of Storybrooke was out for her blood, her lover had learnt what a monster she really was and her son was forever lost to her. There was nothing that this world had to offer her and she briefly regretted destroying her own. 

The tears she shed were real. Even the heartless have the right to mourn the loss of their life. The surprising thing was that amongst the pain there was a sense of peace. She may have lost everything, absolutely everything, but for the first time since her mother literally ripped away her future she felt that she had done something right. More than that she felt a glimmer of something she thought she had lost – she felt a little bit like the girl she used to be and the woman she should have been.

The curse was broken and she was alone but it didn’t matter because Henry was alive and he had Emma. Without her they would have a chance at a better life. A chance at what she had stolen from everyone, even them, a happy ending. This was the most good she was ever going to do. It had come at considerable cost but it was worth it.

She should have known better than to think that she would be allowed to keep something that brought her peace. There is no peace for the likes of her. 

Regina felt the change before she saw it. The air was different. It crackled and fizzled with promise. Everything was going to change. She could taste it. 

She would like to think that, having briefly found a small amount of peace, that she was above the need for power but apparently she is not. Power isn’t everything; it won’t make Henry or Emma love her, at least not for real, but it is better than nothing. In fact in a world where the townsfolk were busy gathering their pitchforks, power was a lot more than nothing.

It was difficult to wait for the front to arrive but when the purple waves finally washed over her she accepted them willingly and thought, ‘Let them come,’ and come they did. In a way she relished it. She had held a position of power as the mayor but it was not the same as being a queen. For twenty-eight long years they had failed to give her her due and the sleeping dragon inside her demanded retribution.

They arrived on her doorstep, whipped into a rather pathetic version of a frenzy by Whale. It was far from the world’s best example of a mob but they did wish her ill and she certainly wanted to show them what happened to people who crossed her. 

In retrospect she may have applied a few more dramatic flourishes than was necessary but if her magic hadn’t have failed her they would not have seemed out of place. It’s embarrassing now but it was terrifying at the time. There was a real chance that she was going to die there, torn limb from limb, before she was even able to truly comprehend what had happened.

She tried to brace herself and accept her fate but it wasn’t as easy as it had been only moments earlier. There was no peace to be found. The taste of power, or at least the promise of it, had stolen that from her. As Whale pinned her down she thought about her life and about how off track it had gone. When she thought about who she was, and compared it with who she could have been, death seemed like a reasonable option.

Death didn’t come for her though. Emma came for her instead. Snow and Charming may have taken over but Emma had been the first voice of dissent. It wasn’t much but it was enough to make Regina reconsider her death wish. In fact when Snow suggested that she needed to be locked away things really started to look up. She’s not crazy. Part of her might believe that she needs to be punished for her many, many crimes but imprisonment is not a goal. Being held in Sheriff Swan’s cell, however, does hold a certain appeal.

Even as she tried to summon her magic and make her escape from captivity she was thinking about the things that she would let Emma do to her in that space. She is fairly certain that if she had have been able to open the cell she would have remained, secure in the knowledge that she was not trapped, and she’d have very much enjoyed her time behind bars. She can add that to the list of things in her life that should of happened but didn’t.

Instead of quality naked time with Emma she was greeted by Gold. She should probably refer to him by his true name but that name holds power and she will not let him have any more than he has already taken from her. Regina tried not to show pain as the medallion burnt into her flesh but it was impossible. This was more than physical pain; it was a prelude of what was to come. She knew she was marked for death.

She didn’t fight it. She couldn’t fight it. In a way she should have been marked long ago. Maybe she was. Maybe from the moment she took her first steps down the road to darkness she was always heading to this point. There was nothing left to do but lie down and wait for that path to come to its natural end.

When the wraith came she wanted to embrace death with open arms. She wanted at least to get that bit right. To show that she understood that this was her penance, that this death was what she had wrought. She had planned to lie calmly and let the end come but it turns out she couldn’t do it. When the wraith arrived so did her survival instinct. Her life may have been a mess but it was still her life. 

She made a last ditch effort to draw on her power but nothing came. There was nothing she could do but stand there and wait for the wraith to steal her soul. She wanted to laugh because she never imagined dying like this; she didn’t even know that she had a soul to steal. The deadly kiss was excruciatingly but she knew that, like all kisses, it would not last. This kiss brought pain but it would also end her pain. Forever.

Her perfect and somewhat poetic death was stolen from her. The Charming family came crashing in to save the day, as they are wont to do, and as a result her destiny was postponed. Snow’s meddling hands ruin everything in Regina’s life, even her death. 

Seeing Snow and Charming restored to their former glory was possibly more painful than the effects of the wraith but seeing Emma there had helped ease the hurt. After the way they had parted at the hospital she wasn’t sure that she would ever see Emma again and yet there she was coming to Regina’s rescue for a second time. Regina wanted to talk to her, wanted to hold her, but she had to settle for a brief touch of hands and the unbelievable gift of Emma telling her parents that the Evil Queen was not going to die.

In that moment she felt something akin to victory. It was possible, just possible, that Emma cared for her more than she did her pompous parents. If that were the case she would finally have beaten Snow. She is not going to pretend that she didn’t like that thought but somehow it wasn’t all important. It was dwarfed by the feeling that learning Emma cared for her produced and maybe that was the point. The potential victory against Snow was a bonus but it was accidental. What happened between her and Emma had nothing to do with her parents. It was simply about them, about how they felt, and it’s been a long time since Regina had anything so pure.

For a while there things just seemed to go from strength to strength because the next thing she learnt was that Henry didn’t want her to die. For a brief second the void inside her didn’t seem quite so huge but it opened right back up again when she started to second guess herself. What if this was all for Henry? What if Emma was only here at his request? What if Emma didn’t even care if she lived or died? 

These were questions that would have to wait for answers because the soul sucking wraith wasn’t about to hold off so she could sort out things with Emma. She was forced to come up with a plan and she did so but it was far from foolproof. Her whole plan relied on magic. Her life hinged on something that she hadn’t been able to make work in this land. 

The return of the wraith still haunts her. It flashes through her mind again and again. Sometimes it’s nothing but a blur but at other times it replays in slow motion reminding her how close she came to failure. She gets to relive watching the Charmings in all their glory, doing what they do best. Doing everything she took from them when she banished them here. The return of their confidence grates her almost as much as the return of their self-righteous love does. 

She also gets to relive the fear and frustration that came with being unable to open the portal. She was desperate. She could feel magic everywhere. It was all around her, it was inside of her, and yet she couldn’t access it. Her motivation to use magic was strong, probably as strong as it had ever been, but for some reason she couldn’t make it flow. Regina had believed she was going to die and that seemed unbelievably unfair now that she was sure that she had someone who wanted her to live. She struggled with the hat but it refused to spin. It was clear that this was going to fail but she was still trying to process that fact when Emma touched her. 

Emma placed a hand on her arm and then suddenly the hat spun and the portal opened. That it was magic was clear but it was not magic as Regina knew it. She had always found magic to be seductive and intoxicating but it was also cold and controlling and harsh. Any joy it brought came at a great cost. This magic was different. It was warm and strong and, if not good, at least right. This was not the empty gift that her mother gave her; this was something that was shared. A union, a joining, it was a representation of what they were together. What they can never be now that Emma has been sucked off the face of the planet.

Charming, in his oafish attempt to be a hero, crushed the hat and in doing so destroyed any chance she had of following Emma. There is no guarantee that she would have been able to reopen the portal but at least she could have tried. Snow isn’t the only one willing to follow Emma to her death. She knows that the Enchanted Forrest still exists and even though she has put all that she has into getting away from there, for Emma she would return. Their reunion would likely be brief given that she is still marked for death but Regina has faced death enough times recently to feel that they have moved from acquaintances to friends and of all the offers death has tried to hand her, dying with Emma seemed the most acceptable. 

She tried to use her magic, their magic, to make Charming pay for what he had done but Henry put an end to that. Regina would like to say that Henry’s renouncement of her was the worst thing that has ever happened to her but coming in the wake of Emma’s disappearance it felt like a raindrop in a hurricane. It was a raindrop full of heavy water, it hurt like hell and it will leave a scar, but that will barely be noticeable amongst the litany she already has. She loves Henry, to the best of her ability, and she wants them to be a family but without Emma she’s not sure that she can ever be the mother he needs. Regina doesn’t need Henry to tell her that she has to save Emma but it’s better for all concerned if his mandate is perceived to be her source of motivation.

No one would ever believe that she cares for Emma. They don’t think she is capable of such things. She hopes that Emma, wherever she is, knows better. It wasn’t quite true love’s kiss but she is certain that together they made magic. She is glad to have her magic back, she will need it to keep her safe, but she understands better than any of them just how little it means. She has spent a lifetime either fearing or resenting magic but the one thing she knew for certain was that magic was power. It turns out that she was wrong because she has her magic back but without Emma she is powerless.


End file.
